


Dig Me Out

by theoriginofloves (madelinedrive)



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Almost Soulmates AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 06:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinedrive/pseuds/theoriginofloves
Summary: Canon-divergent/College Age AU: Richie is making his way as an aspiring stand-up comedian, Eddie is completing his MBA, and neither has any substantial memories from their childhood. When they happen to meet on the streets of New York one night, the mystery begins to unravel.Slight spoilers for IT: Chapter Two, but mostly looking at what might have happened if the boys found each other before Mike had a chance to call them back.





	Dig Me Out

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't gonna write another Richie/Eddie fic but this idea wouldn't leave me alone and I figured I could practice staying around/under 10k and writing from different POVs. I wrote it over the last few days and just loved it a lot, so I'm sharing with y'all. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @theoriginofloves. Enjoy!

For a long time, it hadn’t occurred to Richie Tozier that it was strange that he couldn’t remember much of his childhood. When he tried to reflect on it, he thought that it had been a happy childhood, or at least he couldn’t remember ever being outstandingly miserable. He remembered what his house looked like, the way his parents yelled at him for being vulgar or disruptive. He remembered being okay at school — not good, but not bad, just average all the way through. He remembered having friends, but when he tried to reach for their faces or voices, those details always seemed to be just out of reach. 

He remembered the way the leaves changed in the fall and were reborn again in the spring and he remembered wanting to get the hell out of Derry as soon as possible.

The memories he’d made since leaving Maine were much stronger, much easier to call back when he needed them. 

He’d left Derry the week after high school graduation, with a couple bags packed into his piece of shit car. He remembered a few friends sending him off, but whatever words they’d said or whatever the looks on their faces had been, they were obscured. It had been an eight hour drive from Derry to the Bronx, where he’d pawned off his car and caught a train into the city. With the money he’d saved over the years plus the bonus cash from getting rid of the car, he was able to rent a room the size of a closet in the East Village from a guy that insisted on calling him Ricky even when he was corrected. 

His first week in New York, he’d walked every block south of 14th Street, making a mental map of comedy clubs, open mic nights, cafes, and any other spaces that he would need to invade to start getting his name out in the comedy scene. By the end of the week his feet were blistered to hell, but he had met contacts at some of the clubs and secured a job as a waiter at one of the more artsy cafes. 

Fast forward five years and he was comfortable with how far he’d come. No more waiting tables, though when he was strapped for cash some of the clubs would let him tend bar for tips. He was starting to get real buzz within the comedy world and he no longer had to take open mic nights wherever he could get them. He was considered a headliner most nights at some of the inferior clubs and was even on the on-call list for the Comedy Cellar, which was huge. He’d upgraded from a studio the size of a small closet to a studio the size of a large closet, still nestled in the East Village. 

And he was happy. Most of the time. 

There were other times, like tonight, when he’d gotten the call that there had been an opening for him at the Cellar, when he’d sprinted from his apartment to Greenwich (ten blocks, five of which were Avenues), only for the club owner to tell him they’d already filled the spot. 

“_Seriously_?” Richie panted, doubled over on the front steps of the club. People milled about, squeezing between him and the owner.

“Serious, Rich,” the man was looking at a clipboard that had illegible scribbles all over it, names, times, dates, and god knows what else crossed out and written over each other. “Quinn’s gonna drop in so we bumped Dave up into the open spot. I called you.”

“Yeah, after I’d already left my apartment to haul ass over here,” Richie huffed, though he knew he had to bite his tongue. There was only so much bitching you could do when you wanted to keep someone on your good side. 

The man shrugged before clapping a hand on Richie’s shoulder. “Sorry kid, out of my hands,” he said, even though it wasn’t. “How about you come by Sunday, I’ll put you in the good spot on the late show for the next two weeks, huh?”

Richie tried not to let a devilish smirk pull over his face. A Sunday late show that he could plan for was far better than a Wednesday night spot on the fly, and he was being offered two. “I’d appreciate that, Jim,” he nodded obligatorily, shaking the man’s hand and saying, “I’ll see you Sunday.”

“Alright, Richie, I’ll see ya Sunday,” the man said, starting to retreat back into the club as he called over his shoulder, “Now go get yourself laid!”

Richie scoffed, chuckling as he walked back out to the sidewalk. 

It was a beautiful New York night, the lights of the street starting to illuminate as the dusk got too heavy to see through. Everyone was out and alive, sitting on their stoops, strolling down the sidewalks, huddled around outdoor tables at cafes. It was just deep enough into spring for the weather to be gorgeous, but not yet into summer when the weather would be stifling. 

All things considered, Richie guessed it wasn’t so bad of an idea to try and go get himself laid.

*********

The idea of a blind date sounded right up there with waterboarding for Eddie Kaspbrak. If he had his way, he’d be spending his Wednesday night in the NYU library sifting through some of his newly found research for his Master’s thesis, which he would be presenting in less than two months. That sounded like a far more productive time then spending an evening out with a girl who he had nothing in common with. But one of the girls in his cohort had insisted to the point that he was incapable of saying no.

He left his building and headed towards Washington Square Park, where he’d been instructed to wait under the arch for a girl wearing a yellow sundress and a purple hat. 

The description had made Eddie roll his eyes. Of course it had to be something that would look ridiculous, would point them both out in a crowd as being uncomfortable strangers staging a first meeting. Why did set ups have to be so embarrassing and why did people keep insisting on forcing them onto him? 

If it were up to Eddie, he would happily be single for a little while. Yes, he’d been single throughout his undergrad, which he’d completed at Boston College, and yes, he’d been single since he moved to New York almost two years ago, but it wasn’t like he was missing anything. His time was preoccupied by his studies, research, jobs, daily check-in phone calls with his mother. He had enough on his plate without getting involved with another person. 

Yet, for some reason, everyone was sure that they had the right girl for him, if only he’d give them a chance. 

Hell, he didn’t even know if there was a right girl for him. 

He was cutting through the park from the east entrance when two men passed in front of him. Eddie’s eyes followed the lengths of their arms to their hands, watching where they held each other, swinging weightlessly between them. As always seemed to happen when he saw two men out in public exhibiting any form of affection, a shiver ran up his spine, abruptly ending in a tingling flare at the base of his neck. 

For so long he had thought that feeling was fear, that his body was going on high alert because his mother had told him time and time again that New York City and every gay person in it was infested with AIDS, but he knew better now. He had friends in his classes who were gay, who had enlightened him as to why his mother’s rampant homophobia was rooted in ignorance and that there was nothing to be scared of when he saw gay people living their lives like anyone else. 

No, he knew that the feeling wasn’t fear, but something worse. Something he couldn’t bring himself to admit out loud. The feeling was envy. Jealousy. Desire. 

He snapped himself out of his thoughts just in time to realize that he had followed the couple through the park, from the east gate down to the southwest entrance. He’d passed right by the arch without thinking and, looking over his shoulder, he realized he wasn’t going back. Instead, his feet were following the men out to 4th Street, heading west.

*********

Just as Richie knew where all the comedy clubs were, he also knew where all the gay bars and hangouts were. In the first year or so that he’d been in New York, he hadn’t stepped foot inside any of them, had just walked in long meandering laps around the same neighborhoods every night, observing. It wasn’t until a bouncer at one of the clubs had grabbed him and told him that they’d seen him prowling around and that if he was going to try and start shit, they were going to have a problem. Richie had hyperventilated explaining that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, he had just been too chickenshit to come in, and the bouncer had kindly allowed him in for a drink, even though he’d still been underage at the time.

He found himself in the West Village every now and then, knew which places he liked and could fit in at and which ones weren’t his scene. He didn’t spend as much time as he might like in those spots, for fear that some talent booker or comedy executive might catch him in a compromising situation, but he was familiar enough that the regulars smiled and waved at him. 

Since he was already in the area, he walked from Greenwich up to one of the bars he liked on Christopher Street, giving a little salute to the bouncer who had threatened him all those years ago. 

“How’s it going, Jack?” Richie nodded, stopping just outside of the doorway and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Can’t complain, Richie,” the hulking man shrugged, his arms crossed in front of his body. “No gig tonight?” 

“Nah, thought I had one but didn’t turn out.”

“Hmm.” The bouncer grunted in response. Two men with clasped hands walked up to the door, one of them giving a little wave, and the bouncer nodded them through. “Hey Rich,” he started, nodding his head across the street and continuing, “What do you make of that?”

Richie looked across the street to where a man stood all by himself, staring over at the bar. He was thin and from what Richie could make out, a little mousy. But cute. 

“What about him?” 

“Think he’s bad news or just working up the nerve?” 

They kept looking on, but the man didn’t move, just stayed frozen in place. Richie would recognize the body language anywhere: tense shoulders, chewing at his lips, slight tremor where his hands were tucked into his jacket pockets. The kid was doing what Richie had done all those years ago — longing to let himself walk across the street and into the bar, where he could accept who he was and what he wanted. 

“Harmless,” Richie nodded, licking his lips before saying, “I’ll go talk to him.” 

The bouncer snorted at that. “Good luck with that,” he chuckled, adding, “First round’s on me if you can get him inside.” 

Richie lit up with a smile. Free drinks and a chance at getting a cute guy to come home with him? Maybe his Wednesday was turning around after all. “You’re on.”

He looked both ways before trotting across the street, slowing to a walk as he stepped up onto the sidewalk, pulling his most charming smile across his face as he approached. It didn’t go unnoticed the way the man’s eyes widened the closer Richie got. 

“Hey man, how’s it going?” Richie started, digging in his jacket pockets for a pack of cigarettes as he asked, “You got a light?” 

Up close, the guy was younger than Richie had thought, probably around the same age as him, and more handsome than he’d seemed from across the street. He had short black hair, cut and combed in a conservative manner. He was dressed like a Wall Street wannabe, an ironed button up shirt, pressed slacks, and shoes that were way too shiny, but he wore them without a sense of pretension. Most notable, though, were his too expressive eyes that were big as saucers, a panic flitting through them that almost made Richie feel panicked too. 

“Um. Yes?” The man said, snapping himself out of his own daze but keeping his eyes locked on Richie’s face as his hands rifled through his pockets. 

Richie’s smile softened somewhat, remembering the sheer terror of interacting with men in those early days. It was so easy to look back on it now when, at the time, he’d been petrified. He found his pack and shook a cigarette loose, bringing it up to his lips and leaning in. 

The man found the lighter and brought it up to the end of the cigarette, his trembling hand cupping the flame as he lit the cigarette. 

“Thanks man,” Richie said through his teeth, offering the pack over for the man to take one. 

“Oh I don’t smoke. I have asthma,” the man said, pocketing the lighter. 

Richie gave him a questioning look, putting the pack away in his pocket and removing the cigarette from his own lips to exhale. “What’re you carrying around a lighter for then?” 

The man thought for a second, the fear in his eyes easing up slightly as he shrugged, “I just like to be prepared.” 

“Huh. Admirable,” Richie said, letting a note of teasing play in his voice. He took a long drag on the cigarette, exhaling the smoke up and away from the asthmatic before he joked, “So you planning on standing out here all night? Because my friend over there thinks you might be planning a hate crime and we wouldn’t want to ruin a nice evening like this with something tedious like that.” 

The guy’s eyes bugged again and he shook his head quickly, stammering for a second before saying, “I wasn’t — I’m not! I just…I got lost. That’s all.” 

Richie watched the guy freak out, trying not to let too wide of a smile break out on his face. The way his voice pitched up, talking way too fast, was endearing. It made Richie want to hang around him saying dumb shit to keep him flustered.

“Hey, hey, it’s cool, we’re cool!” Richie teased, extending a hand out and saying, “I’m Richie, by the way. I don’t think I got your name.” 

The man hesitated, his eyes on Richie’s hand for a long time before he finally reached to take it. When their palms touched, there was a connection so instant and so powerful that it wiped the smile right off of Richie’s face. The inside of his head spun and for a second he swore he could smell the water from the old reservoir he used to swim at as a kid. 

“Eddie,” the man breathed out, looking as if something had just struck him too. 

They stood there shaking hands for a stupidly long time before Richie asked, “Have we met before?” 

The man, Eddie, finally realized they were still gripping each other’s hands and pulled his away, taking a deep breath before shaking his head and saying, “Uh, no, I don’t think we have.” 

Richie nodded, although now all he could think was that there was something familiar about him. But if he had met this Eddie guy, he knew he would have remembered. He seemed like he’d be a hard one to forget. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I would’ve remembered someone like you,” Richie allowed himself to be flirtatious again, although in the heat of the moment it sounded more sincere than light-hearted. “So can I buy you a drink?” Richie nodded back across the street at the bar, adding, “It’s a lot nicer in there then it looks from out here, I promise.” 

Eddie looked over Richie’s shoulder, his eyes darting between the bouncer and the rainbow flag hanging over the doorway. For a moment, it almost looked like he’d say yes. 

“I think I really should head home,” Eddie nodded, looking back up to Richie’s eyes and saying, “Like I said, I just got lost.” 

Richie was disappointed, but not surprised. There was clearly a lot at work in this Eddie guy’s head and it couldn’t have been that easy to get him to cross that line. “Alright, I get it,” Richie said, taking another long drag from his cigarette before dropping it to the ground, stubbing it out with his toe. “Why don’t you let me walk you home then, so you don’t get lost again?”

There went the eyes again, widening and darting across Richie’s face like animal of prey trying to register the movements of a predator lurking in the shadows. 

“Look, no funny business. I’m just trying to help,” Richie held up his hands, trying to appease the fear, as he said, “Where’s home? Financial District? Upper East Side?” 

The guesses brought a momentary smile to the guy’s face and half a chuckle. Richie counted that as a win. “Mercer and 8th,” Eddie admitted, adding, “It’s really not that far.” 

“Not far at all,” Richie nodded, pushing his glasses back up his nose again before shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. “And honest-to-god, it’s on my way home, so I’d be a dick if I didn’t walk you home. Safety in numbers, all that shit.”

Eddie looked him up and down again, and whatever he saw seemed to convince him enough. “Okay,” he nodded, adding, “Thank you.”

*********

Every survival instinct his mother had instilled in him was going off in his head, every panic switch that was meant to be flipped had been. Not only was he letting a stranger walk him home, but a man that had approached him outside of a gay bar at that. And on top of it all, he had hair just long enough to curl around the edges, kind eyes distorted by comically thick glasses, and one of those goofy smiles that made you feel warm just by looking at it. When their palms had touched, it was like Eddie could feel summer sunshine heating up his face.

If his mother knew, she’d die on the spot. 

“Mercer and 8th,” Richie repeated back to him as they started back from where Eddie had just come, walking side by side. “Christ, does that make you an NYU kid?” 

Eddie frowned, asking, “What’s wrong with being an NYU kid?” 

Richie answered with a laugh, shaking his head as he replied, “Nothing. Just means you’re probably about ten times richer than me and a hundred times smarter.” 

“Smarter, maybe,” he teased, glancing over with a pointed smirk before adding, “But not richer. I’m paying for all my school by myself, plus student loans.” 

There was a moment of silence as they paused at an intersection, both of them looking either way before jaywalking against the signal lights. “I take it you didn’t go to NYU then?” Eddie ventured to guess. 

“Fuck no,” Richie laughed, turning and winking when Eddie frowned again. “No offense.”

It took all his power to keep the frown in place when his stomach was twisting and turning and begging him to smile in return. 

“I didn’t go to college. Wasn’t for me.” Richie shrugged simply.

“So what do you do if you didn’t go to college?” 

“I’m a comedian.” 

This time, Eddie was the one to laugh out loud, one that came unexpectedly from deep in his gut. When he turned to look at Richie’s faux-offended gasp, he had to laugh more. “Fuck you, dude,” Richie said, though it was through his own laughter. He lightly elbowed Eddie’s side as he said, “I’m serious, I’m a fucking comedian and I’m fucking funny.” 

Eddie waved him off, ignoring the fact that because of Richie’s little elbow move they were now walking closer together. Just an inch or so separated their shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that was just,” he let out another giggle, shaking his head and adding, “Unexpected!”

“Yeah, and what is it that you’re going to school for?” Richie teased, “Something boring like taxes or accounting?”

Eddie was surprised by how quickly this stranger had managed to break his guard down, how easy it had been for this Richie guy to get him to smile. He never smiled at strangers, even the ones he liked. “First of all, people go to school for taxation, not taxes,” he corrected, chuckling at the eye roll response before elaborating, “Secondly, I got my undergraduate degrees in Statistics and Finance from Boston College, and now I’m getting my MBA in International Business.” 

“Oh wow, that sounds so boring it almost put me to sleep,” Richie riffed, stopping in his tracks and pretending to nod off, “Seriously, dead asleep on my feet, like a barnyard animal.” 

This time Eddie was the one rolling his eyes, though he couldn’t get the stupid smile off his face. “Fuck you,” he quipped, since they already seemed to be at that level of friendliness. 

“Hey, maybe if you’re lucky,” Richie fired back with another wink, but he didn’t give Eddie any time to react, moving onto the next question with lightning speed. “How do you like living in New York, Eds?” 

It was almost like he could anticipate that letting Eddie dwell on any flirtation for too long might send him into a tailspin. Eddie wondered if it was possible that a stranger could be that in tune to his feeling, his thoughts, or if this Richie guy was just really good at playing people. He found himself hoping for the former. 

“It’s…definitely different than Boston. But a good different,” Eddie nodded. He took a deep breath, taking his own risk and leaning over to gently press his elbow into Richie’s side. “And it’s Eddie. Not Eds.” 

Richie pretended to reel back, clutching his side in exaggerated pain as he huffed, “Ouch. No nicknames? That’s cold, Eds.”

They had turned onto 8th Street and from just a block away Eddie couldn’t help but glance at the arch framing Washington Square Park. He felt a twinge of guilt for standing up his blind date, but he knew that whatever strange turn this night had taken, he was having a much better time than he would have had if he had stuck to that plan.

Richie seemed to be following his sightline, asking, “Did you want to go walk around the park?” 

“No,” Eddie replied quickly, laughing nervously as he changed the subject, “So you’re from New York?” 

“God no, but really flattered that you’d think so,” Richie quipped. "I’m actually from Maine.” 

Eddie was surprised that someone like Richie could be from Maine. Everyone he had ever known in Maine had been dull or terrible, though it was hard to make a sweeping statement like that, considering he couldn’t remember much of his childhood growing up there. Sure, he remembered the way his mother had been way too overprotective, he remembered his childhood bedroom, and vaguely, in the corners of his memory, he remembered having friends that he must have liked well enough. But if all of his sustaining memories were so hazy, then the people from home had to have been pretty forgettable. 

“Really?” Eddie asked, slowing the pace of his steps slightly as he realized they were quickly approaching his building and he wasn’t ready for the evening to be over. “I’m from Maine too.”

“Oh shit, that’s crazy,” Richie said, slowing his steps to match Eddie’s pace. “Where in Maine? Let me guess…Kennebunkport.” 

Eddie smiled, shook his head, “No.”

“Portland?” 

A burst of laughter. “No.”

“New Portland?” 

Eddie shook his head and came to a stop in front of his building, taking one of the steps up to lean against the railing of the stoop. “You’ll never guess it, it was a really small town,” Eddie said, a challenge underlying the statement.

“Couldn’t have been smaller than mine,” Richie said with a laugh, adding, “Ever heard of a shithole called Derry?” 

Eddie’s blood ran cold. It was like those old wive’s tales about a ghost passing through your body, chilling you to your core. He had never met anyone from Derry outside of Derry; hell, had never met anyone who’d ever heard of Derry outside of Derry. 

“Did you say Derry?” Eddie muttered, any lightness in his voice shuttered away now. “Like D-E-R-R-Y?”

Richie’s face froze, his head cocking to the side like Eddie had caught him completely off guard by recognizing the name. “Yeah, Derry,” Richie said cautiously, an eyebrow quirking up as he asked, “You’ve heard of it?” 

The air escaped from Eddie’s lungs and refused to refill, which left him gasping for air. He averted his eyes from Richie’s frightened look, instead focusing his attention on digging through his jacket pockets. He located his inhaler and ripped it from an inside pocket, shaking it and popping the cap off in one swift movement. He inhaled deeply from the device before removing it from his lips, exhaling out slowly as he tried to find his breath. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Now it was Richie that was freaking out, reaching his hands out then retracting them when he realized there was nothing he could do to assist the situation. “What can I do, how can I help?” 

Most people shut down when he had an asthma attack, either because they didn’t know what else to do or simply because they assumed Eddie knew how to handle himself. It was nice that Richie seemed to want to do something to help. 

“Fuck,” Eddie finally breathed out, shaking his head at Richie and saying, “No, sorry, it’s just…I’m from Derry too.” 

This time it was Richie who looked like he had the wind knocked out of him. One of his hands went to the flat of his stomach, like someone had just punched him square in the gut, the other reaching up to fiddle with his glasses. “Really?” Richie said, squinting his eyes as he asked, “Are you fucking with me?” 

Eddie shook his head gravely, adding, “I’ve never met someone else from there.”

“Me neither,” Richie breathed out. 

They stood there staring at each other for a long time. Eddie supposed that he should make some excuse to go back up to his apartment, to thank Richie for his help but to get himself out of this situation. But now it felt like he’d discovered a clue for a mystery he didn’t know he wanted to solve. 

“Can I ask you something?” Eddie blurted out, fiddling with the inhaler in his hands. When Richie nodded, he continued, “Do you ever feel like…you can’t remember much of it? Of Derry?” 

“Like it’s blurry?” Richie picked the next words right from his mouth and they hung in the air between them. 

The same shudder seemed to work its way through both of their bodies, their shoulders trembling at the same time. Then, from both of their mouths at the same time, an exasperated, “Fuck.” 

“Well, that was super fucking weird,” Richie broke the silence thereafter, running his hands up and through his hair and turning away from Eddie. He seemed to consider the quiet street before turning back to face him. “I need a drink. Do you need a drink?” 

Eddie just nodded, stepping back down to the sidewalk and waiting for Richie to lead the way.

*********

So the cute stranger was from Derry.

_Impossible._

It was impossible that Eddie could also be from Derry. They were clearly close in age and there had only been one set of schools that all the kids in Derry went to — even if they hadn’t been in the same grade, they would have seen each other around or run in similar circles. 

More than anything, Richie was sure that if someone like Eddie had been around when he was growing up, they would have been friends. Because he just _liked the guy_. He seemed sharp around the edges, quick but careful, all the things that Richie had always found himself drawn to in others. Plus, he was just…handsome.

Without realizing it, Richie had started to lead them back towards his apartment as they reviewed all the things they knew about their own experiences in Derry, and all the things they couldn’t remember. 

They figured out that they had gone to the same schools, had graduated from high school the same year, although neither of them could seem to name a single teacher they had in their twelve years of schooling within the Derry public school system. 

They figured out that they knew all the same places — the arcade at the movie theater, the park in the town square, the reservoir and the barrens. 

“We _had_ to have known each other,” Richie said for what felt like the fiftieth time. They had passed several bars, but neither of them had stopped at any of them. Instead, it seemed that they had ended up in front of Richie’s apartment building. 

“Shit, maybe we did,” Eddie’s voice was incredulous, as it had been for the many blocks they’d walked. “How is it possible that neither of us can remember a single name besides our parents? That doesn’t make any sense.” 

Richie tried to concentrate harder, tried to sharpen the blurred out faces that went with the bodies that had swam with him in the reservoir, had crowded around him while he played Street Fighter for hours at a time. Even that old memory of leaving town, he could see the bodies in his rearview mirror but just not the faces. 

“There’s no chance you have a yearbook or pictures or something?” Richie asked, though he felt the answer in his bones before he asked it. 

Still, Eddie shook his head. “No, all of my things are back at my ma’s house,” he said, returning the question, “You don’t either?” 

Richie exhaled through his teeth. Part of him was confident there was no photographic evidence in his apartment, mostly because he was sure he knew every square inch of his apartment and not one of those inches held a personal photograph from before age 20. 

Except. 

Each time he’d moved since leaving Derry, he’d shoved the same old duffel bag deep under his bed without taking measure of what its contents were, then forgot its existence. Every time he’d thought about fishing it out and going through it, some stronger force pushed the thought out of his mind. Hell, he hadn’t even remembered until Eddie had asked. 

“I might have something,” Richie said, blinking at Eddie as he furrowed his brows, “I think I might, at least. Do you want to come up?” 

The question seemed to pull them both out of their obsessive trance, Eddie taking a deep breath and looking up at the building Richie was gesturing to. “Oh,” he said softly, eyes darting from Richie’s face to the door then back to Richie. 

It took Richie a moment longer to remember the context of the evening. “No funny business,” he said sincerely, nodding and saying, “And if you want to stay out here while I go look, that’s fine, I just—”

“No,” Eddie cut him off, shaking his head sharply. “No, I want to go. This shit’s really freaking me out.” 

Richie hesitated, giving Eddie a moment to reconsider. When he simply squared his shoulders and nodded, Richie nodded back. 

He let them in through the front door, then led the way up the three flights of narrow stairs to his apartment unit. The building was in considerably more disrepair than the one that they’d stopped outside of before, where Eddie must have lived, but if Eddie seemed put off by it at all, he didn’t say so. 

When Richie opened the door, he let Eddie cross through first, saying, “It’s not much and it’s a little out of sorts, but make yourself comfortable.”

The studio was one large room, kitchen appliances tucked into one corner, a bed tucked into the opposite corner, with a hulking coffee table that doubled as a kitchen table sat squarely in the middle of the room. There was a shitty TV stacked on a couple of crates and notebooks scattered throughout, but it could’ve been worse. 

“Jesus,” Eddie exhaled, negating any of the reassurances Richie had been telling himself. 

“Hey, watch it.” 

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean,” Eddie started but paused, taking a longer look around the apartment before saying, “It’s got character.” 

Richie rolled his eyes, trying to bite back a smirk. “That’s just a yuppie way of saying _‘Jesus’_.” 

“Well you could probably stand to tidy up a little. And maybe sweep,” Eddie started to say, now examining the flooring as Richie moved passed him. “Actually, what you’d need to do is sweep then mop. When’s the last time you scrubbed this tile?” 

Richie rolled his head from side to side, vamping as he muttered, “Hmm, well if today is Wednesday, and two weeks ago there was a holiday, then the last time I scrubbed this tile was…never.” He shot Eddie a shit-eating grin before dropping down to the floor next to his bed. From above him, he could hear Eddie rattling off a response but couldn’t make out the words from where he had stuck his head underneath the bed. 

It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, then a few more to find the black bag hiding in the shadows behind loose papers and dust bunnies. He grabbed for it and tried to pull at it, but it seemed to be jammed under the bedpost. For the moment, he had to agree with Eddie — maybe if he had kept his stupid apartment clean he wouldn’t have to wrestle his shit out from the darkest corners of his own mess. 

He tugged the bag loose and crawled out from under the bed with it cradled in his hands. At one point in the moving process it must have been full, stuffed with clothes or notebooks, but now it seemed almost completely empty. He could feel the weight of something inside, though there was also a chance it was a couple of extra notebooks or some loose socks. 

“What’s in it?” Eddie asked, standing back in the kitchen, about as far as he could be from where Richie settled himself on the end of his bed. 

“Dunno,” Richie remarked, glancing down at the bag and then back over at Eddie. “Haven’t looked in it since I left.” 

Eddie still seemed wary, though he inched closer, coming to stand just on the other side of the coffee table. He had crossed his arms in front of his body, hugging them into his torso hard as if to keep himself from shaking. “So it could be something…or it could be a bag full of spiders?” Eddie huffed, a hint of a smirk pulling at his lips before disappearing back into an anxious frown. 

Richie laughed, shrugging, “I guess so.”

They both held their breath, Richie’s leg shaking nervously against the bed beneath him as he unzipped the bag. At first glance it appeared empty, although Richie could feel that it wasn’t. He pulled the sides back, digging down into the corners of the bag. It almost seemed like the bag was shirking away from him, trying to keep him from digging any further, but he managed to get his hands on something. 

He pulled out an old yearbook picture of himself, flipping it over to see the year ‘1987’ scrawled on the back in his mother’s handwriting. In the photo, he was wearing the same thick glasses he’d always worn, a collared shirt that his mom had surely forced on him, and his hair too short and greased down. The picture seemed too stupid to share, but he held it out to Eddie anyway. 

“Look familiar?” 

Eddie took a couple steps forward, reaching out and taking the picture from Richie’s hand. He seemed to study it, scanning the wallet sized photo for a long moment before handing it back. He shook his head.

“Okay, well, glad I showed you the dweebiest possible picture of me for nothing,” Richie quipped, though his voice was weaker than before. He had hoped that might have unlocked something in Eddie’s memory, if there was anything to be unlocked. 

He reached into the depths of the bag again and came up with an arcade token. That one wasn’t surprising and wasn’t helpful, seeing as they’d already established that they both remembered the arcade. Still, he handed it over to Eddie, who seemed anxious to examine it for himself. 

“This is so fucking weird,” Eddie muttered, running his fingers over the face of the coin as he repeated, “So _fucking_ weird.”

He reached back into the elusive bag and from the deepest corner, amongst what seemed to be loose sand and remnants of grass, he pulled out something that felt like a note. When he unfolded the piece of paper, though, it turned out to be another photo, a glossy 5x7 that had lost most of its gleam.

The picture made his heart stop.

In it, two young boys were asleep at opposite ends of a hammock that seemed to be hidden somewhere, like a basement or backroom. At one end, there Richie was, a younger version of himself anyway, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead and his cheek nestled against a sock-clad foot. And in the other end of the hammock, the spitting image of the man standing in front of him at age twelve or thirteen. 

Richie forgot how to breath. With his hands trembling, he flipped over the picture, searching for an answer. On the other side, there were delicate words printed in a different handwriting than the school photo. 

** __ ** __

**“Richie & Eddie in the clubhouse. Both too stubborn to give up their turn. You crazy kids. xx Bev”**

Around Eddie’s name, a lop-sided heart had been drawn with a different colored pen and Richie remembered being the one to draw it there.

“What is it?” Eddie’s voice cut through his thoughts and suddenly Richie just knew him. 

“Holy shit,” Richie breathed out, the pit of his stomach suddenly twisting into knots and his heart starting to beat erratically in his chest. When he looked up at Eddie again, he remembered what it had felt like when they had been kids tangled up in that hammock, the way that sometimes they’d kick and scream at each other mercilessly and the way that sometimes they’d just drift off to sleep with the sun warming them from somewhere above the surface of their underground bunker-turned-clubhouse. 

“I remember you,” Richie said, holding the photo out for Eddie to take as he repeated, “Oh God, we were _friends_.” 

Eddie took the picture in his hands and even in the way he studied it, the way he gripped the edges and tensed his jaw, Richie saw the way Eddie had held himself as a child. He got flashes of swimming in the reservoir, riding bikes through town, saying goodbye on the day he’d left Derry for good — each of those memories had only been blurry faces on nondescript bodies but now, in each of them, Richie could so clearly see Eddie as one of those people. 

One of his friends.

And he felt the way his heart ached all those years ago, how he had been too young and too scared to realize that the longing that Eddie had always stirred in him was a byproduct of being hopelessly, completely in love with him.

*********

When Eddie looked at the photograph in his hands, he could smell the dirt that made up the floor and the walls of their ungodly clubhouse. He didn’t remember how it came to be that this was where they spent their time, couldn’t remember how anyone convinced him to hang out in a place so unclean, but he remembered feeling at home there.

He remembered the feeling of lounging in the hammock, how luxurious it felt to be suspended in the middle of nature but sheltered away from the dangers of the outside world. 

And he remembered the feeling of his hand wrapped around the leg of his friend, gripping gently to anchor himself in place as they swayed themselves to sleep. 

“Richie Tozier.” The name fell out of his mouth with ease, his eyes following the length of his teenage leg to where it was pressed against Richie’s face. He exhaled shakily, hearing their prepubescent voices bickering about not taking their turns properly. He closed his eyes and saw the way he climbed into the hammock on top of Richie, their bony knees knocking as their limbs were tangled together.

“You were such a little asshole,” Eddie exhaled, the photo shaking in his hands as he looked back up at Richie. “You always went over your time allotment and I always climbed in there to fight you over it.”

Richie cried out a laugh of his own, shooting up from the bed to throw his arms around Eddie. If it had been some real stranger, he would have jumped away, but when he wrapped his arms around Richie and held his body tight against his, it felt like how he always imagined his memories were supposed to feel. 

Even more than that, Eddie couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him and he’d been able to completely relax in their arms. He always counted it as just another side effect of his neuroses, but wrapped in the arms of this man who had been a stranger to him minutes ago, he realized that he could be held without panic, without fear. 

“I didn’t know how much I missed you,” Richie muttered into the side of Eddie’s head, pulling back to put his hands on Eddie’s face, “Isn’t that fucked up? You were like my best friend and I didn’t even know.” 

“This is so majorly fucked up. How is this possible?” Eddie couldn’t begin to try and process how any of this could be real. It wasn’t just the matter of having lost so many memories from his youth, it was that in the span of one night, in five minutes, they had been able to rediscover who they had been.

As if his body was capitalizing on the opportunity to be touched, to be comforted, he mindlessly pressed his cheek into Richie’s hands. The memories flooded in, showing what it had been like when they were kids, when they had pushed and prodded at each other; how they had hung on each other when they were swimming and one of them got to tired to tread water, so the other would have to tread water for both of them. They held each other without fear and, for that brief blissful time as a child, they could comfort each other without shame or guilt. When was the last time he’d allowed himself to touch another boy?

“Oh,” Eddie said when the realization settled over him. 

He stepped back, not quite slipping out of Richie’s touch, but putting distance between them. “You were…you were at that bar tonight,” Eddie blinked, clearing his throat as he realized that in all of those memories, when they had just been stupid kids, he hadn’t known that Richie was gay. “You tried to pick me up.” 

Fear flashed across Richie’s face and he pulled his hands back, both of them flitting up to worry at the frames of his glasses again. “Yeah,” he conceded, swallowing thickly as he tried to hold himself up taller, “Yeah I guess I did. Probably because I’m…gay.” 

Eddie heard all those horrible things his mother used to say about gay people run through his head again, now peppered with new memories in which she had speculated that Richie might be gay and why that was another reason they shouldn’t be spending so much time together. It was hard enough to reckon with the fact that they’d just rediscovered years worth of memories, now Eddie had to reconcile the fact that Richie was gay and, before all the revelations of the evening, Eddie had wanted to be pursued by him.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed out, glancing up from where his eyes had fallen to their shoes. “You tried to pick me up and I was going to let you,” he admitted, though as soon as the sentence was out his breath left his body and he had to hurriedly reach for the inhaler again. 

“You were?” The posturing was gone and Richie perked up like he always had, that teasing smirk playing on his face and his eyes shining as he continued, “Because I was only getting like a 70% vibe that you were gonna let me kiss you when we got to your apartment.” 

“Shut up Richie,” Eddie wheezed out, breathing in deeply from his inhaler and sighing out slowly as he muttered, “Oh fuck I think I’m gay.” 

He expected Richie to go into some long-winded joke, to start riffing about this wild fucking night, but he didn’t. In fact, when Eddie looked over at him again, Richie just seemed to be smiling sweetly at him. “Is that the first time you’ve said it out loud?” he asked, shrugging one shoulder as he said, “Because the first time is the hardest. It gets a lot easier the more you vocalize it.” 

Eddie was still trying to regulate his breathing, pressing his hand to his chest as he looked Richie up and down. “How long have you know you were?”

Richie chuckled, looking down at his feet, over towards the window, anywhere but Eddie’s eyes. “It’s funny, I’ve tried to remember how long I’ve known, but it was always so fucking blurry,” he said, the lightheartedness trailing out of his voice. When he looked back up, he shrugged, “But I guess I knew when we were kids. I just didn’t let myself really be until I moved here.” 

They stared at each other for a long time. Eddie’s breath had returned to him but his heart was beating wildly, threatening to burst right out of his chest. He thought he had never felt this way before but a memory came back to remind him that he had. 

The last time he’d seen Richie was a week after their high school graduation — Richie was leaving for New York and Eddie wouldn’t be moving to Boston until the fall semester. Somewhere he picked out a memory leading up to that day where he had begged Richie to just stay through the summer but Richie had said he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Another memory followed that one, of Richie begging Eddie to come to New York with him for the summer, to run away from Derry for a little while before he had to go to college. And he remembered wanting to — really considering that he would spend the summer with Richie — before realizing that he needed to be able to work at the pharmacy at home to save money for school. 

All those conversations had culminated in that last day; there had been other people there but Eddie _knew_ that he was the last one that Richie had hugged. He remembered Richie saying that he’d send a postcard with his address once he figured out where he’d be living, then promised to come visit Boston in the fall. Eddie made his own promises in return, insisting that Richie come home for the holidays and then Eddie could visit New York for spring break of the following year. 

Of course none of those things had come to pass. Eddie had gone home that day and sobbed for two hours, kicking off a panic attack that had stretched over the rest of the summer and only absolved itself when he left for Boston months later. 

“I was so distraught when you left,” Eddie’s hands were shaking now, tears threatening at the corner of his eyes as he said, “And I was so _fucking_ mad when I didn’t hear from you all that summer. Fuck, I should have _known_.”

“How could you have known?” Richie laughed breathlessly, shaking his head. “We didn’t mean to forget. I didn’t want to forget you. I wanted—” he hesitated before throwing his hands up in the air, a delirious laugh bubbling up from his chest as he said, “I wanted to be with you! And it’s just fucking crazy because even not having those memories, when I saw you on the street tonight, I wanted to be with you. That’s like…soulmate shit, isn’t it?”

It was the final straw for Eddie. He closed the distance between them, throwing his arms over Richie’s shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. Even though it had been a long time since he’d kissed someone, even though he’d never kissed another man, it felt so good and so right. 

Richie’s hands landed delicately on Eddie’s sides, his touch soft as if he was worried to hold on to tight because it might scare Eddie away. 

But Eddie wasn’t scared anymore.

*********

When Richie woke up, the dream he had been having disappeared and two things popped into his mind: one, Eddie Kaspbrak was sleeping in his bed, wearing one of the free comedy club shirts Richie had been gifted over the years, and two, Eddie was gripping his forearm hard, like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away.

“Eds,” Richie whispered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together as he murmured softly, “Eds, you’re killing me.” 

The other man stirred, squeezing his eyes shut harder for a few seconds before blinking them open. It took him a few seconds to register where he was and what he was doing, his eyes going from his hands to Richie’s face. The hand that gripped Richie’s arm relaxed but didn’t let go, only rubbed tenderly at the skin he had nearly punctured. 

“This is so fucking weird,” Eddie breathed out. 

Richie laughed, rolling his eyes as he huffed, “Jesus, good morning to you too.” 

Before he could make another quip to tease Eddie with, they were kissing again, Eddie’s hands moving to hold Richie’s face close to his. It was like a dream that Richie still couldn’t convince himself was entirely real. 

As Eddie kissed him, though, something from deep in his slumber bubbled to the surface and he had to break away. He jumped out of bed, swearing under his breath and scrambling for his glasses.

“Oh fuck, shit, wait, where is it?” He was repeating over and over again. 

Eddie forced himself to sit up, watching the chaotic flurry for a moment before asking, “What? What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Looking for the picture,” Richie said, but before Eddie could give an answer, Richie snatched it up off the table.

He crawled back into bed, up to the spot next to Eddie and held out the picture for him to look at. “I had a dream,” he breathed out, flipping over the photograph to show the writing on the other side, tapping next to the last line. “I had a dream about this person. Bev,” he said excitedly, his hands starting to tremble as he continued, “We were in the hammock in the clubhouse arguing and she was there. I couldn’t see her face, or hear what she was trying to say to us, but I know she had red hair and her real name was Beverly.”

“Beverly,” Eddie repeated softly, and even though he had no memory of the girl, something deep in his subconscious offered up, “Marsh?” 

“Beverly Marsh!” Richie exclaimed, leaning in to kiss Eddie victoriously. When he pulled away, he shook the picture, smiling wildly as he said, “We have to look her up! Maybe if we can track her down, we can figure out more of these fucking lost memories.”

Eddie took the picture from Richie’s hands, flipping it over and tracing the long letters of the girl’s handwriting. The print was neat and even those few measly words seemed to have been written from a place of affection. 

“Yeah, we should look her up,” Eddie said softly, wondering how many more memories they would be able to uncover together. 

He sat up straighter, staring pointedly back at Richie, “On one condition.” 

Richie just beamed at him. “Name it.” 

“I’m never fucking going back to Derry.”


End file.
